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Top nuclear salaries rising by up to 58 per cent

Salaries for senior staff in the nuclear industry have rocketed by as much as 58 per cent in the last year.

The going rate for key nuclear jobs is being pushed up by a skills shortage according to a pay survey of the industry carried out by Emma-Jayne Gooch, of west-Cumbria based NuExec Consulting,

The survey took information from 64 companies and analysed recruitment data in Cumbria and the north and found:

Starting salaries for senior planners had risen 45 per cent between 2011 and 2012 so they were now being hired for between £56,957 and £80,000

Senior engineers salaries have increased by up to 23 per cent to £67.875 and the top project manager salaries are up 10 per cent to
£71,500

The best paid senior project managers are now being hired on salaries of £103,000 – a rise of 58 per cent.

Ms Gooch says that the rising wage bill in the nuclear industry is due to a skills shortage, adding: “The industry needs 25 per cent more graduates to service the predicted nuclear growth and the nuclear workforce is an aging one with almost half of Cumbrian nuclear workers due to have retired by 2025.

“So wages are bound to spiral upwards as people move from one company to another.”

“A 58 per cent rise is an almost obscene wage increase over just one year and it is no wonder that smaller companies are struggling to recruit or are losing staff to bigger organisations,” she said.

The gas and oil industries had higher salaries and have poached staff, Ms Gooch said, adding: “I don’t think people are overpaid when you consider what they are dealing with.”

There are fears that the rising salaries will have knock on effects for smaller firms who will have difficulties in matching higher wages.
One firm told the survey: “Larger businesses and clients do not have the same scruples and freely contact my staff with unsolicited approaches. We complain, they ignore us and carry on regardless – after all its not illegal.

“I am now considering a ‘West Cumbrian’ weighting (like the London weighting) as our business cannot function in the current market, prices will have to rise.”